Beyond Westeros: Exploring the other works of George R.R. Martin

1. Dying of the Light (1977)

Welcome to Worlorn, a planet abandoned by its people because its unique orbital trajectory is slowly shooting it away from the star it was orbiting, out into the cold expanse of uninhabitable space. Once, races from all across the universe came to Worlorn, building cities and essentially turning it into a festival planet. Everyone knew that Worlorn would one day drift away from its sun and die…and that just meant that it was a great excuse to turn the planet into the perfect tourist destination.

The story begins as Worlorn is reaching its final stretch of habitability, and a man named Dirk t’Larien is called to this dying world by an old flame. But when Dirk gets to Worlorn, he discovers that the woman he once loved has married into an alien culture with equally alien relationship customs, reminiscent of something out of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness. And she’s not exactly happy to see him. The clashing of cultures and personal narrative form the core of this fast-paced sci-fi thriller.

Much like Westeros, the planet of Worlorn is a character unto itself. In fact, parts of Worlorn resemble parts of Westeros. Take Darkdawn City, a grouping of buildings chiseled into shapes that make them “sing” when the wind hits them a certain way. In ASOIAF, there are two places like this: the Singing Towers of Nightsong in the Stormlands and the Singing Stones in the Summer Isles, which are described on page 280 of The World of Ice and Fire.

If the dark, grim parts of Game of Thrones were your bag, then this book is for you. Every single character falls somewhere on the spectrum of grayness—most do good and awful things throughout the story, and it’s hard to know at any given moment who to root for. It’s a bleak rumination on how we each meet the long darkness that awaits at the end of life. As the 1947 Dylan Thomas poem for which this novel was named goes:

“Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, Rage against the dying of the light.”